At the moment it is fashionable to not praise children on issues they don't control (inherent intelligence) and instead praise them on what they can control-- effort, hard work. Ref.
English doesn't have a tidy word for this that I can think of.
Icelandic does, duglegur, which basically means persistent and, hard working and is routinely used to praise children. One online dictionary says this means работящий, энергичный, способный, ловкий. I'm not sure how to use these in a colloquial phrase.
What phrases in Russian convey this?